Romanov Riches: Russian Writers and Artists Under the Tsars

In 1803, with the help of his older friend, the poet and Mason Mikhail Muravyev, who had taught young Alexander Russian literature, Karamzin petitioned the emperor to be named official historian of Russia. In principle, this was not an unusual request. In that period, the Russian government was assigning knowledgeable people to research topical military or political issues—embryonic think tanks, without special privileges or the crown’s personal involvement.

Karamzin received more attention: Alexander by special decree made him historian of the Russian Empire, with a stipend of 3,000 rubles (had he made inquiries about Karamzin’s magazine salary?). Also, Karamzin was not expected to prepare a text by a certain deadline, as were the other advisors. All that was expected—only!—was that one day he would write the first “real” history of Russia.

Thus, Karamzin was charged with the responsibility for a unique national project and fell under the emperor’s personal patronage. There had been earlier attempts to write the history of Russia, but they were unreadable. Alexander, who was an admirer of Karamzin’s poetry and prose, wanted a work on a European level, a narrative that would combine the seriousness and depth of research with entertaining and elegant style.

Alexander got more than he had expected. In 1811 in Tver, at his sister’s salon, the emperor enjoyed the author’s reading of excerpts from the first volumes of The History of the Russian State. Then, on the evening before his departure, Alexander read the manuscript of “The Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia.” As a result, Alexander was markedly cold in his farewells to Karamzin.

What was the cause of the emperor’s overnight reversal in attitude toward his historian?

The text Alexander read by candlelight that night began with a brief outline of Russian history from the beginning until 1801, brilliantly written: an inspired poem in prose. Then came an evaluation of the political achievements of the first years of Alexander’s reign and Karamzin’s recommendations—the part that upset and angered the emperor greatly.

Never had a Russian writer with access to the court dared to criticize his sovereign so sharply and practically to his face. The paradox was that Karamzin did it in order “to protect the emperor from himself.”

Alexander dreamed of reform and with the help of his adviser Speransky explored some possibilities for implementing them, while Karamzin, with the passion of a gifted poet and the skill of a professional political journalist, tried to warn him off.

In small, private conversations, Alexander spoke of the need to limit autocracy, but Karamzin maintained the opposite: “Autocracy founded and resurrected Russia … What except unlimited single rule could create unity in this vast country?”¹³

The irony of the situation was that Karamzin, in his heart of hearts a republican (as he himself admitted sometimes), after many years of studying Russian history came to the conclusion of the need and benefit for Russia of an autocratic ruler. It was just the reverse with Alexander I: his long-held ideas of liberal reforms came from his reason, but in his heart he still was an absolute monarch.

That may be why Alexander’s autocratic impulses prevailed: in 1812 he suddenly fired the liberal Speransky and sent him into exile. There is no doubt that Karamzin’s “Memoir,” by its timely appearance, played an important role in this dramatic political turnaround. It is just as obvious that both men—tsar and poet—made a corresponding note in their memory.

At the same time, Alexander’s relations with Napoleon—described in Karamzin’s “Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia” as “a genius of ambition and victory”—deteriorated. The short Napoleon somehow always managed to look down at the Russian emperor, which irritated Alexander immensely. He wrote to his smart sister, Ekaterina, “Bonaparte thinks I am nothing but a fool. He laughs best who laughs last.” (Napoleon, in his turn, said in 1812: “In five years I will be master of the world: only Russia is left, and I will crush her.”)

On June 11, 1812, the French army of 600,000 men led by Napoleon invaded Russia. The Russians called this the Patriotic War. At first, it went very badly for Russia: its army, forced by the French, retreated toward Moscow. At the very beginning, Alexander personally led the troops, but in the face of failure he turned over command to the old and experienced military leader Mikhail Kutuzov, who fought Napoleon near the village of Borodino on August 26, 1812.

The battle, later vividly portrayed in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, was a meat grinder, with close to 100,000 men of both armies wounded or dead. It was so confused that both sides claimed victory.